


Hotch's Secret

by Spnfandom8



Category: Batman - Fandom, Criminal Minds
Genre: Aaron Hotchner Needs a Hug, Angst and Feels, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt, Family Issues, Father-Son Relationship, Humor, Issues, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Feels, Jason Todd Has Anger Issues, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd Has Nightmares, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd-centric, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Past Violence, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Sad, Secrets, Self-Esteem Issues, Trust Issues, refrenced underage drinking, troublemaker jason todd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spnfandom8/pseuds/Spnfandom8
Summary: "Hey-o Daddy-o" is the phrase that silences the room of profilers, making them all stop and stare at the young man who just sauntered in the door. "Jason…. Is there a reason you call me that?" Hotch asks, sighing.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	Hotch's Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy. :)

"Hey-o Daddy-o" is the phrase that silences the room of profilers, making them all stop and stare at the young man who just sauntered in the door.   
"Jason…. Is there a reason you call me that?" Hotch asks, sighing deeply as the man crosses to where Hotch is sitting at his desk. He perches on the edge of the desk, keeping one foot on the ground, and swinging the other up to rest on the armrest of Hotch's chair.   
The BAU team gawk as Hotch does nothing to stop the man, seemingly waiting on an answer to his question.   
"The reason I call you that, is 99% caused by the embarrassment you endure because of it, and 1% because you actually spawned me." The man answers, grinning in the face of Hotch's scowl.   
"It makes me sound like a pedophile. Not to mention the fact that you don't call Bruce any variation of dad" Hotch counters.   
"Well, he's Bruce." Jason replies, apparently seeing that as an adequate response.   
"He raised you. I've known you since you were fourteen." Hotch replied.   
"You knocked my mother up" Jason says with a razor sharp grin, seeing nothing wrong with the card he played, the only sign that it even affected him is the bite of bitterness underlying his tone and the quick flash of pain that flickered across his face.   
"What are you doing here Jason?" Hotch asks on a heavy sigh, not even bothering with confronting his jab.   
Jason doesn't answer him. Doesn't even pay attention to him. Just let’s his gaze bounce around the room, his attention sticking on a picture on Hotch's desk.   
"This must be Jack. He's cute. I like the aesthetic in here. All family pictures, wife, son. Excepting the bastard one that is, although, who warrants a picture when they aren't even allowed to meet their own brother?" Jason asks bitterly, grinning sharply through the sour words as he looks at his biological father.   
"Jason!" Hotch snaps out, his eyes flashing with irritation.   
"Agent Hotchner, Sir!" Jason snaps back, straightening his back and whipping a hand up in a salute.   
He holds the pose for a moment before dropping back to a slouched posture, his face relaxing from the serious expression it had adopted moments prior.   
"Now, before you have a heart attack, I actually do have reason to be here. I called a few days ago, we talked on the phone Agent Jareau." Jason says, turning to the blond, who stares at him with the same level of confusion as everyone else. Everyone else being the entire team.   
"Guess she doesn't remember. She does talk to a lot of people about a lot of cases, although i’m sure she would have remembered me if she knew who I was. Except none of you knew I existed. It's cool, he doesn't tell anyone. I, on the other hand, don't give a fuck about outing his secrets. Especially considering he knows none of mine in return." Jason says, abandoning his argument for why he was here.   
"Hotch?" Morgan asks a moment later, turning to his boss.   
"We can talk about this later. Why are you here Jason?" Hotch asks again, his tone brokering no room for arguments or procrastination.   
"Right. Case. Teens between the ages of sixteen and eighteen are being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. The cops see no connections between the kids, I got the commissioner to invite you down though. I put the case together." Jason tells them, raising questions.   
"Wait, how and why did you put a case together? And why did no cops believe you? And how did you get the commissioner to invite us down?" Reid asks, twisting his hands together as he talks.   
"I'm a bounty hunter slash bodyguard slash whatever the fuck you wanna hire me to retrieve or protect. I currently have seven ongoing cases, and an in with the commissioner. Daddy-o works serial killer cases, I don’t have the time to." Jason says, employing the cringeworthy nickname again.   
"how um, how old are you?" Emily asks hesitantly, having been wondering since the young man walked in the door and called Hotch Daddy-o.   
"Twenty" Jason answers easily, turning back towards Hotch a moment later and opening his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted by a feminine voice.   
"Woah, who's this?" They hear from the doorway, and Morgan has to muffle a laugh that bursts forward with the way Garcia’s staring at Hotch's apparent kid.   
“Jason Todd, nice to meet you” Jason says, sliding off of Hotch’s desk and making his way over to Garcia, a flirty smile on his face.   
“Penelope Garcia” she says back, smiling flirtily back at him.   
“You are the best thing to happen to me all day, beautiful, you know that?” he asks, grinning devilishly at her.   
“Beautiful?” she questions, a coy smile on her lips.   
“Definitely, confidence is sexy” he tells her, darting his tongue out to lick his lips and ignoring the rest of the room.  
“You don’t seem like the one to go for confidence, more like you’d go for the skinny model type” she tells him, deflecting the compliment as easily as she had flirted back moments prior.   
“Hah, that’s funny. You shouldn’t stereotype people, beautiful, you might miss out” he tells her, leaning into the doorframe, his towering build almost blocking the whole thing out.   
“Really? What is your type then?” she asks, biting lightly on the end of her glittery pen.   
“I don’t exactly have a type. I like confident people, pretty people, people with style, a sense of humor, good personality. I like, uh, people. There are also a lot of people that I don’t like, it’s very personality based though. Gives everyone a shot to get off my shit list, long and varied as it is.” Jason tells her, tucking his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and smiling at her, his green/blue eyes glittering in the fluorescent lighting.   
“Who is he?” Garcia asks after a moment, a genuine smile on her face as she peeks around his massive frame to ask the question.   
"Apparently, he's Hotch's kid" Morgan answers, causing her eyes to widen and her lips to part in shock, her gaze darting between Jason and Hotch a few times while she waits for somebody to confirm or deny that statement.   
"Eh, vaguely, biologically.” Jason answers, turning back into the room, shooting her a grin over his shoulder as he makes his way back to his previous spot on Hotch’s desk, kicking his foot up onto the arm of his chair again, this time getting a dirty look for the move.   
“Oh, my. Sir, I am so sorry, I didn’t-” Hotch cuts her rambling off.   
“It’s fine Garcia” he tells her genuinely, beckoning her into the room.   
She clears her throat as she walks into the room, casting a few not-so-subtle glances towards Jason, who winks at her when he catches her eye.   
“You told me you wanted me in your office when I was finished wrapping up our previous case. Here I am.” Garcia says professionally, not reacting to the wink.   
“Yes, I had a potential case to discuss with everyone, it didn’t go through JJ, but I thought it was interesting, it was sent to me from…” Hotch pauses as he flips open the case file on his desk, shooting a suspicious look and a raised eyebrow at Jason when he does, heaving a sigh before reading the name off. “Commissioner Jim Gordon, Gotham City”   
“Yeah, Agent Jareau was interested in the case, but I hadn’t gotten the commish on my side quite yet, so I didn’t have anything or anyone professional backing me up. She told me she couldn’t help me, so when Jim agreed with me about it being a case, I had him send it straight to you.” Jason explains, an almost sheepish look on his face, although he doesn’t seem too upset about going completely over JJ’s head.   
He speaks up though as he sees the raw indignation cross her face, and knows he’s fucked up.  
“I shouldn’t have done that, but nobody ever said that I wasn’t an impulsive fuck, so…” Jason trails off, shrugging at her with a mix of apology and ‘what can you do?’ confusing her on whether she should be angry or forgiving.   
“I-” she seems to give up, not feeling like it’s the most pressing issue at the moment.   
“You were planning on presenting the case to the team Hotch?” she asks instead, plastering a professional look on her face as she looks to her boss.   
“No, actually. I was going to have you and Garcia come in and look it over, decide if you thought it was worth taking. But since everyone is here..” Hotch trails off, looking to her for approval, she nods.   
“Okay.” 

Almost an hour later they’ve all discussed the case, Jason adding small details about why certain things fit together, surprising everyone, especially Hotch, at how adept he is at putting a case together from seemingly nothing.   
“Where did you learn any of this?” Hotch asks as he stands from his chair.   
“The cop shit?” Jason asks, cocking an eyebrow from where he’s lounging on the couch in Hotch’s office.   
“Yes, the ‘cop shit’” Hotch clarifies.  
“I’ve been mixed up with the cops my whole life, I know how a lot of it works. Got a lot of clarification when Dick became a cop, and when Bruce shoved me through a bullshit ‘future cops’ program with Gordon when I was fourteen. I’ve apparently got a knack for it.” he says dismissively, swinging his legs around so that they’re planted on the ground, not the armrest.   
“Now, can I ride with you back to Gotham, I had Roy drop me off on his way to Toronto, I could always take the train or some shit, but i’m pretty sure a private jet’s faster” Jason asks, and although it isn’t really phrased like a question, he’s still asking.   
“Sure” Hotch answers, turning away from his son and towards his team, who are all still sitting in various positions over his office.  
“Be at the Jet in thirty” he says, dismissing them.  
Thirty minutes later finds everyone spread out in their favorite places on the jet, open files in front of them as they all try to learn the details and nuances of the case before they’re in Gotham.   
JJ has already contacted the commissioner and told him that they were on their way, and he was more than surprised that they were even coming, let alone so soon after he had sent the request.   
It’s quiet for almost an hour when they hear a phone ringing, and they all look to the couch Jason is currently sprawled across when none of them come up with ringing phones.   
He takes his time pulling his phone from his back pocket, hitting accept on what has to be the last ring, and answering with an unconcerned “what?” getting a few raised eyebrows from the other people occupying the jet.   
They move their attention away from him a moment later when they find he’s just listening to whoever is on the other side, an indecipherable expression on his face.   
The calm doesn’t last though, and everyone’s attention is reluctantly drawn back to the man when they hear a low growl rumble through his chest, his face darkened in an almost scary expression of rage.   
They all watch on a little uncertainly when his unoccupied hand curls into a fist so tight that his knuckles blanch completely white, his breathing measured and controlled, so much so that it simply adds to the anger clouding around the man, instead of calming.   
“You had one fucking job, you stupid motherfucker” he growls down the line, each word measured and gritted out through clenched teeth, the muscles in his jaw ticking periodically.   
They can hear the frantic murmurings of another man on the other side, but they can’t hear what he’s saying.   
“I don’t want to hear what you have to say, there are eight dead children. Because you couldn’t follow simple directions. Why are you so controlling Jason? Why can’t you delegate, Jason? Why don’t you sleep more Jason? Because i’m surrounded by fucking imbeciles who just got eight children that I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to, blown the fuck up!” Jason explodes, spinning around and chucking his phone across the plane, watching it shatter into a million different pieces.   
There is an eerie silence permeating the enclosed space, the only sound being Jason’s heavy breathing, everyone staring at his slumped shoulders, watching for a long minute, until he straightens, pulling his shoulders back and turning back towards them, his face wiped clean. Blank and empty being the best words to describe the expression, or non-expression on his face.   
“Jason?” Hotch asks hesitantly, unsure how to proceed after an outburst like that.   
Jason doesn’t answer him, just cocks an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.   
“Are you alright?” Hotch asks, taking a step towards him.   
“No.” Jason answers resolutely, turning back around and bending down to pick up the shattered pieces of his phone.   
Hotch looks conflicted, opening his mouth to speak, and then seemingly thinking better of it, closing it and motioning for everyone to sit back down.   
There is an awkward tension in the air, but nobody moves to break it, Jason simply dumping his broken phone into the trash before moving back to the couch he was sitting on before his phone call, laying down once more and tossing an arm over his eyes.   
Nobody misses the way that Hotch’s attention drifts to the young man when he isn’t looking though, his eyes softening now that Jason isn’t looking at him, an almost guilty expression surfacing the longer he watches the man. He watches as Jason’s breathing even’s out, as his arm slips from over his eyes and he falls into a light sleep.   
Hotch eventually picks the file up again, this time angled in his seat so that he can sneak glances at Jason every few minutes.   
“You have another kid, Hotch” Morgan softly says after the tension bleeds harmlessly from the cabin of the plane.   
“Yeah. I was young, stupid. I didn’t, I didn’t know about him. It was just a fling, what I had with his mother, I didn’t know she was pregnant when I left. I didn’t know she was in a relationship either. It sounds stupid, I know, I’m a profiler, how did I not realise something like that?..... fourteen, almost fifteen years later I got an anonymous message from one of his friends, a computer whiz. She had helped him put together everything together, they told me about how his mother had been in a relationship with a not-so-great guy, but after some digging, and a not so lawful paternity test, they came up with me instead of him. Apparently the guy she was in a relationship with won custody over him, because she refused to tell him about me being the real father, I think she was scared of telling him, and he took Jason with his new wife to Gotham. They were both addicted to meth, the father was in prison before Jason was 5, and Jason was left with his ‘mother’. I don’t know a lot about him before he was adopted at 13, except for his arrest record. He was an, angry kid. When he was fifteen, he disappeared, and everyone thought he was dead, including his adoptive family and me.  
“He reappeared when he was seventeen, and something, something happened to him. I-I don’t know what, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t good. He wasn’t on good terms with his adoptive family, but he came to see me, we had a semi-decent relationship before he disappeared, but he was, different. Haley didn’t trust him, Jack was just born, and she didn’t want Jason anywhere near him. She thought he was dangerous. And she wasn’t wrong, he wa-is. He is dangerous, he was always strapped with weapons, and he was full of rage, and pain, and fear. But he never tried to hurt us, to hurt me, at least not physically, he lashed out a lot, emotionally. Haley never let him meet Jack, and it created a huge divide between the me and Haley, and me and Jason. I didn’t agree with her, but I wasn’t going to lose her over something like the perceived danger she thought I would be putting our son in.  
“I don’t know a lot about him. I haven’t known him for very long, and he’s extremely closed off. He has a hair trigger on his temper and he’s hurt, understandably, about not being allowed to meet his own brother, because Haley sees him as a danger. I don’t know how he grew up, only that it was bad, I don’t know where he was or what happened to him for those two years, only that it was bad. I don’t know why he’s so fucking angry at the world, only that it seems justified. I don’t know where he learned to fight or shoot, only that he’s damn fucking good at it. I don’t know where he learned to wear masks like clothes, but he’s better than most of the serial killers we chase. He’s my son, but I don’t know him.”   
Minutes pass in silence.   
“Do you want to know him?” Emily asks, not unkindly.   
“Yes. I want to know what causes his nightmares, his scars, his PTSD, his trust issues. I want Jack to know his brother and I want to know my son, but he has these impenetrable walls that he keeps up, guarded 24/7 by paranoia and rage. I’ve only really known him for four years, two of which were spent fighting or with him ignoring my existence and disappearing with his best friends halfway across the world. He isn’t just a puzzle that I want to figure out. He’s my kid.” Hotch says, his face expressionless, although the emotion is his voice has overridden any suspicion that Hotch doesn’t care deeply about his lack of a relationship with the son he didn’t know he had.   
“If I had known about him, he could have had a normal life. I could have spared him so much pain, so many scars, too much rage. I could have given him the life that he deserved, not the one that he got.”   
“But Hotch, man, you can’t change that. You didn’t know. You weren’t given the chance to raise him. You both missed out on what could have been something really good. But you can’t change that. You can’t change the past, you can just, try to get to know him. You can do what you do best, figure him out, get to know who he is, and then love him, regardless of who he turns out to be.” Morgan says, trying to get through to his leader.   
“He has a family who loves him. He has a father who I can’t figure out either, but who obviously cares very much about him. He has three brothers who would do anything for him, he has friends, a life, and I don’t have a place in that life. It might not entirely be my fault that I wasn’t there to create a space for myself in his life, but I wasn’t. And I can’t fault him for that, or ask him to change it. It isn’t fair.”   
“Why not?! He’s twenty years old Hotch, his life isn’t set in stone, he hitched a ride with his friend across four states to personally bring a case to you, he calls you creepy nicknames to annoy you and he pushes all of your buttons. He might not know how to ask for a relationship, but it’s pretty fucking clear that he wants one. He might be fucked up, all of us can see that bad things have happened to that kid Hotch. Hell, your missing most of his life story! he’s got PTSD and paranoia and anger issues and trust issues and an shit-ton of other shit that none of us have even started to diagnose yet, but he’s still just a kid. He might be able to fight and shoot and wear masks, but he’s not trying to actively push you away, he’s never tried to hurt you, even if he’s dangerous. Your ex won’t even let him meet his own brother, and Jack happens to be the only other biological family tie, aside from you, that this kid has, and still, he doesn’t leave, doesn’t physically lash out. It is so easy to see that he’s hurting man, it’s easy to see that he’s looking to have some connection to you, that he wants to meet his brother, that it hurts, the consistent, if not conscious, rejection that he gets from you. You might not have been there to carve out a place for yourself in his life, but it’s plain to see that it’s something that the both of you want, regardless of his family and friends and his life. It’s not too fucking late.” Morgan says, the fight draining out of him as he sighs, sitting back in his seat, his eyes flickering to where Jason is laying, two wide green/blue eyes staring at him from where the kid lays.   
“M’ not a kid” Jason mumbles through the shock stretching through the jet. None of them having expected the kid to wake up, especially considering they had all been watching him, making sure his breathing was still even, that his eyes were closed and his features relaxed.   
“I overdosed for the first time when I was six, mom wanted me to ‘have fun’ with her. The landlord showed up to collect the way-too-fucking-overdue rent and ended up calling the ambulance, they said I was lucky, she was so high she wouldn’t have noticed, and she gave me so much that I would’ve definitely ended up dead had he not have called. It was meth.   
“I was arrested for the first time when I was eight, assaulting an officer. He was getting a lot too handsy with some of the women that work the street, they looked after me, so I looked after them. I was thrown in Juvie for a few months, it wasn’t bad though, a few of my friends were there too.   
“I got shit-face drunk for the first time when I was eight, and the first time I smoked a cigarette was when I was seven. The first time I got into a real fight was when I was eight, broke a rib. The first time I found myself in an actual boxing ring was when I was nine, but it was for an illegal fighting ring that a bunch of the older kids had organised, I won thirty two bucks.   
“I lost my virginity when I was eleven, that was a mistake, we were fucking drunk though, so not really a surprise either. It was with Riley, a girl that I met at one of the group homes they stuck me in, she was fucked up, I was fucked up, match made in heaven, really. The couple running the place didn’t actually like kids, and the guy, Mr. Steven’s, liked beating us. He got a little carried away one night when he was beating on her, she wasn’t the first dead body that i’d ever seen, but she was the first one I cried over.  
“I was unconscious when he did it, I had intervened when he first started beating on her, hit him in the face with a paperweight, broke his nose. He returned the favor with a concussion, three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, one partially collapsed lung and a fractured femur. When I came to, she was just laying there, her chest was barely moving up and down, and by the time the ambulance that the neighbor had called, arrived, she had been dead for about a half hour. Nobody ever found Mr. Steven’s.”   
Jason pauses for a long minute before he begins speaking again, ignoring the pale faces of the people around him.   
“I first started running drugs for Pete’s gang when I was seven, and I boosted my first tires when I was eight. I was arrested seven more times before I was thirteen, which is when Bruce picked me up from juvie. Fuck knows why he wanted to adopt a kid like me, but…  
“He was weird. Distant and cold, but that was good for the first few months. I figured he’d throw me out at the first hint of a scandal, so I stole one of his more expensive cars, and I crashed it, then I decked a reporter, ran away a few times, got into drag-out throw-down screaming matches with him, stole his liquor and got plastered, started fights with Dick, stole shit from the manor and pawned it, sprained my wrist on his jaw. I got into fights at school, cursed out the Dean of Gotham Academy, trashed the statue out front, that cost Bruce a few thousand to replace. I teamed up with Roy and we rebelled against our adoptive billionaire father’s together. I was a fucking nightmare, and he never threw me out…  
“I went and found my biological mother when I turned fifteen, I had been talking to you for a few months by then, and I figured that if you weren’t a total shit-show, why not? You know? Why not….. she seemed pretty cool, and then uh, then she drugged me and gave me to The Joker, it was halloween, and I was wearing this stupid fucking robin costume. It was, it was stupid, but I fit his psychotic profile for the real Robin. He broke pretty much every bone in my body with a crowbar. It took him close to three hours, but he took breaks to talk to me, to get a drink of water, because, you know, it’s a real tiring job, beating a kid for such an extended period of time. Sometimes, sometimes he would uh, he would laugh so fucking hard that he had to stop beating me, and double over, tears streaming down his face, and I would try to crawl away, and that just made him laugh harder.   
“He kept telling me about how the big bad bat was gonna finally break, how he was really gonna go crazy after his latest prank. He was so, gleeful, about years of hard work coming to a head, about how all of his games were to further his one true goal, to make the Bat break. If you were wondering, he meant that Batman was going to snap and kill him, and that’s what he wanted. He wanted Batman to get so enraged, so angry, that he would finally take that final step and fucking kill him…….. It didn’t work.”  
There is another long pause here, Jason taking a moment to collect himself and continue with the story.   
“Bruce has some insane connections to the Justice League, particularly Batman. Bruce had Bat’s looking for me as soon as I had gone missing, he got there in the nick of time, and by that I mean before Uncle J blew the building down on top of me. Apparently aliens, meta’s, magic, and the Justice League earned me a two year ticket to not-so-dead ville. They just, didn’t tell Bruce, or anyone, for that matter. I should be dead. And they didn’t tell Bruce about any of it because they thought I was going to die, actually, that’s a lie, I did die, quite a few times actually.   
“From my end, though, it was like, nothing. It was this eternal darkness, it was so silent that I couldn’t fucking breathe, and I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t, I just, two years is a long time to exist in nothing. It’s a long time, long enough to fuck me over, real good. The psychiatrist for the league said that I underwent multiple mental breaks, causing PTSD, paranoia, bouts of extreme and violent rage, flashbacks, insomnia, trust issues, anger issues…... Sometimes I have these dreams where i’m drowning, and i’ve had a few people tell me that I stop breathing entirely, but they can’t wake me up because i’m violent coming out of a nightmare, so they have to wait for me to pass out.   
“Some of my issues come from my childhood, growing up the way that I did, my relationship issues stem directly from Riley, I had some slight disassociation regarding my injuries from abusive foster and group homes, as well as my time in Juvie and with the cops. Not to mention the gang shit I was tied up in. It was the three hours with the Joker though, that created my severe disassociation from any and all sustained injuries.” Jason says, huffing out a humorless laugh at his last statements. Nobody smiles.   
Jason is surprised to realise that he feels better after telling his bio-dad the closest thing to the truth that he can get without exposing his family. He’s hoping that Hotch will at least believe his lie about the two years he was dead, because he wasn’t lying about the nothingness, the mental breaks he was diagnosed with, his issues, he was simply lying about B showing up before he was blown to smitherines, about the league working on keeping him alive for two years, instead of the truth, that he was dead for two years and the League of Fucking Assassins were the ones to bring him back. And all the capes. He left out everything about his being Robin, and the Red Hood.   
Those things come with their own issues, but none that he could ever even think of telling Hotch.   
“Anyway, I have this strained, weird relationship with my family. Hotch’s wife finds me too dangerous to be allowed to meet my brother. Daddy-o himself is a whole-nother problem, it’s okay though. I spent most of my childhood alone, so these twisted bones of relationships that I have, they’re better than nothing. It’s why I still call you every once in a while, why I go to the Manor for christmas, why I still live in Gotham. I’m too fucked up for any real relationships, and too fucked up to cut ties and start over somewhere else. I can never get close, and I can never leave. It’s like i’m constantly in fucking limbo. And now i’m using a plane full of profilers like a sounding board, fucking complaining about my life…..  
“And you, Hotch, i’m sure you really wanted an info slash feelings dump from your bastard son, not that it matters. You’ll solve the case, go back to quantico, i’ll stay in Gotham, or take a case in some other country, we won’t talk for four to eight months, and then one of us’ll call the other, awkward small talk, I'll make some snipey comment about Jack or Haley or your life in general and you’ll get mad, we’ll yell, hang up. And then we’ll do it all over again. You’ll exist with your own problems and your dissolving marriage, and I’ll exist in limbo with my own problems. It’ll continue to be mediocre relationship at best, but neither of us will ever do anything about it, because you’re the absent father who didn’t know I existed, and i’m the fuck-up, fucked-up, bastard son.” Jason rambles, the relief he felt after telling Hotch about his life quickly giving way to regret and anxiety about telling him shit that he probably doesn’t even care about. He ignores the slight blush coloring his cheeks, let’s his indifferent mask take over the embarrassment churning in his stomach.   
It might have been a few days since he slept, but he’s always had a tight lid on his mouth, a tight leash on his emotions, and a steel barrier between him and his memories. He’s pissed at himself for slipping. He knows that Roy would have been a much safer option for the ticking time bomb on all those memories, but it’s been six days of no sleep, two days of nightmares before that, three cases back to back, a fractured wrist, bruised ribs, and stitches pulling across his whole torso. It’s the anniversary of Riley’s death, he’s exhausted, and he’s hurting, and hearing Hotch talk with his team about him just made all that control slip through his fingers, like water through a sieve.   
“Jason” Hotch whispers, an absolutely destroyed expression on his face. It’s the most emotion that his team has ever seen him expose, even around Haley and Jack, even when talking about his divorce.   
“What?” Jason snaps “Don’t act like it ain’t true. You might not have known that I existed, but you didn’t want me after you did. You had a kid on the way and a wife to take care of. I was a fourteen year old mistake that you didn’t need. You didn’t want me before, and you don’t want me now. I’m a responsibility that you didn’t ask for, but that you took on because that’s the kind of guy you are.” Jason says, his words like poison and his voice like acid.   
“Don’t.” Hotch snaps back, his eyes flashing in anger “I didn’t know that you existed. And you have no idea what I went through when I realised that you did exist. You have no idea how much I wanted to take you home with me when I met you. You were terrible, and angry, and volatile, and you spit hateful words like they were nothing. You smelled like cigarettes and you reeked of expensive whiskey, and you scared the shit out of me. And I wanted to figure out what made you tick, what made you get shit-faced drunk at three in the afternoon on a wednesday and tell me to meet you, and I wanted to hug you. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t take you home because you were in the first stable home that you had ever been in, and Bruce, Dick and Alfred loved you, either in spite of or because of your flaws, I never did find out, but you loved them back, you trusted them, fragile as it was. I couldn’t hug you because you would have punched me and then run. So instead I drove you back to the Manor, and I helped Alfred put you in a cold shower and then to bed, and I waited for Bruce to get home, and I talked with him about you for hours while you slept your binge off.   
“I visited every chance I got. And me and Bruce talked twice a week on the phone about you, and then you disappeared when you were fifteen, and I grieved. I went to your funeral, and I held Bruce back when he tried to punch a newscaster in the face afterwards. You were a lot the same when you came back, you were terrible, and angry, and volatile, but instead of fear behind all of it, there was rage. You were angry at the world, and me, and Bruce, Dick… you never told me anything about those two years, you scared Haley when you punched a hole through the wall in the kitchen because I pushed you too far. You were different. You still wouldn’t have accepted a hug, or a talk. But you were different. It didn’t make me love you any less. I never knew much of anything about you, but I loved you, and I wanted to know. So don’t you dare say that I never wanted you, or that you were a mistake that I didn’t need or want. You are my son, and there is no way around it, I don’t want a way around it” Hotch says, his teeth gritted and his jaw working overtime to keep up with his overflowing emotions.   
“Maybe. And maybe I can’t change that. But i’m still not allowed to meet my brother. I can’t go near Haley without being looked at like i’m the devil in disguise. I don’t know anything about you or my family. I don’t trust you, I don’t know you, hell, I don’t even know if I like you. The only thing that keeps me calling year after year is the fact that you pick up the phone…. This isn’t something that can be fixed because I spilled my life story cause’ I haven’t slept in six days and i’m injured. It isn’t something that is miraculously better because I spouted off about my shit life and you showed an emotion other than indifference, anger, or disappointment.” Jason growls, his face shutting down.   
“Maybe not. But at least now we both know that we want something more than what we’ve got right now. We have something to build off of.” Hotch says, not missing Jason’s comment about being injured.   
“Yeah. Maybe.” Jason agrees, although he doesn’t exactly sound like he believes it.   
“Sleep is important if you want any injuries to heal” Hotch says a minute later, needing to address the comment and break the tension of the previous conversation.   
“Hmm, nightmares are bad for healing injuries too, always tears my stitches. Besides, I haven’t had time to sleep, otherwise I would’ve.” Jason says, sounding exhausted, and not just physically.   
“How are you hurt?” Hotch asks a few moments later, not wanting to drop it, especially after hearing about Jason’s apparently severe disassociation with his injuries.   
Jason glares at him for a moment before answering.   
“I got banged up a little on my last case. Nothing I had to go to the hospital for. I had Alfred dress everything, and Bruce double checked that I wasn’t lying about any injures. Call him if you really need to know.” Jason says, throwing his legs back up onto the couch and tipping his head back to lay against the arm of it, closing his eyes and ending the conversation.   
Hotch does end up calling Bruce.   
The BAU team learn a lot more about their leader than they ever thought possible.   
They solve the case in a few days, with Jason’s help, and head back to Quantico, except Hotch.   
Hotch stays in Gotham for two more weeks, utilising a lot of unused vacation time and working on improving the relationship he has with his son.   
He sets up a date and time for Jason to meet Jack, even gaining Haley’s blessing, after a few convincing phone calls from his coworkers to his soon to be ex wife.   
Jason and Hotch still get into frequent fights, but it’s never months before they talk again.   
Hotch resumes his trips to Gotham every month, and Jason plans a few of his own to Quantico.   
They form a tentative trust, and even though Jason is twenty, and he’s building a life for himself, he’s now including Hotch in that life.   
He hasn’t stopped calling him Daddy-o, especially in public, and Hotch still hates it as fiercely as he used to, but it isn’t used offensively from Jason’s end anymore, it’s become something teasing instead of vicious.   
That plane ride didn’t fix their relationship, but it did give them the building blocks to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? good? bad? meh? lemme know what you think. :)


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